There is an increasing awareness in our society, particularly amongst physicians, psychologists, social workers, counselors, other health care professionals, and other types of professionals, of various behavioral and mood disorders which affect an individual's ability to function efficiently and feel satisfied with life. Behavioral and mood disorders can range from mild to severe, and can interfere with an individual's daily life, including the individual's ability to earn a living, earn an education, carry out social and familial relationships, and carry out the tasks of daily life. Behavioral and mood disorders can occur at any age, and thus individuals requiring treatment can range from young children through the elderly.
Professionals in the field of mental and behavioral health tend to utilize a wide range of therapies to treat individuals having behavioral and/or mood disorders. For example, cognitive therapy, behavior therapy, play therapy, and psychotherapy are types of therapy that may be used. In addition to or in lieu of the aforementioned therapies, medications are often administered. It is commonplace for professionals to treat mental and behavioral health issues with pharmaceuticals, particularly orally administrable ones or those administrable via transdermal patches, with the goal of better assisting the brain in functioning, such as by effecting the neurotransmitter chemicals in the brain, or by other means, some of which are not clearly understood.
There is a growing interest in utilizing so-called alternative medicine, including but not limited to nutritional intervention to treat behavior and/or mood disorders. In particular, many individuals are increasingly utilizing herbal supplements, amino acid supplements such as fish oil and evening primrose oil, to treat and prevent a variety of conditions. Such nutritional supplements are often, but not always, associated with lower undesirable side effects than traditional pharmaceutical treatments, and sometimes are as effective or even more effective than traditional treatments. Nutritional supplements may also be used in combination with traditional pharmaceutical treatments. Accordingly, many individuals have found success treating mental and behavioral health issues using nutritional supplements.
Many health care professionals such as physicians incorporate into their practices such non-traditional or so-called “alternative” treatments. One type of alternative treatment that is widely accepted amongst naturopathic physicians is homeopathy.
Homeopathy is a system originated in the late eighteenth century, for the treatment of individuals afflicted with certain conditions or disease, and involves the administration of minute doses of a substance, that in massive amounts produces symptoms in healthy individuals similar to those of the disease itself. Homeopathy is based on the idea that substances that produce symptoms of sickness in healthy people will have a curative effect when given in very dilute quantities to sick people who exhibit those same symptoms. Homeopathic remedies are believed to stimulate the body's own healing processes. One of the basis tenets of homeopathy is that small amounts of the substance are helpful, and that as the amount of the substance is increased, the less helpful and more deleterious the effect on the patient.
Homeopathic remedies are generally produced via iterated shaking and dilution, in ethanol or in water, from a starting substance. For example, to produce a homeopathic remedy of a particular plant substance, the plant substance is first mixed in alcohol to obtain a tincture. One drop of the tincture is then mixed with 99 drops of alcohol (to achieve a ratio of 1:100) and the mixture is strongly shaken. This shaking process is known as succussion. The final bottle is labeled as “1C.” One drop of this 1C is then mixed with 100 drops of alcohol and the process is repeated to make a 2C. The process is again repeated, to make a 3C. By the time the 3C is reached, the dilution is 1 part in 1 million. Thereafter, tiny globules or pellets made from sugar are then saturated with the 3C liquid dilution. These pellets constitute the homeopathic medicine.
To prepare a 6× potency succession, one part of the herbal mother tincture is combined in a vial with nine parts of the carrier liquid, and succussed ten times again, making a 2× solution. The process is repeated four more times, for a total of six dilutions and succussions—and the final result is a 6× potency of the herb. Pellets are then saturated with the 6× potency succession.
A practitioner of homeopathy would expect that administering to a subject 1 pellet of a 6× formula would have the same effect (qualitatively and quantitatively) on the condition treated than if one were to administer 5 pellets of a 6× formula. In contrast, the present invention demonstrates the opposite. Although it utilizes homeopathic pellets, the present invention is based at least in part on the discovery that administering 5 pellets of 6× is indeed significantly more beneficial in treatment of conditions such as ADD/ADHD than if one were to administer only 16× pellet. This challenges a core tenant of homeopathy.
The present invention utilizes homeopathic techniques, but is based in part on the surprising discovery that one may successfully treat certain mood and behavioral conditions by orally administering certain dosages of homeopathic pellets above what homeopathic theory teaches.